rainbow character template redux

So... this only actually occurred to me last weekend after I'd posted my dumpster fire cleric boy makeover.

It's been a minute (February 2020... ah memories... it was a different time) since I made the previous blog template image, and while I see it a lot, I don't often actually look at it, if that makes sense. But since I realised how much I hated the old version of the cleric once I had the new version, I knew the whole banner needed a refresh.

And I wanted to swap out some of the characters, make something that features more of the characters I've finished games with. Or, you know, characters that I'm feeling more than I was feeling some of the old ones. It did lead me to give one of the characters a bit of a mini-makeover, adding the cape to my tabaxi.

What hasn't changed other than the designs... with text lifted from the previous version.

• Whipmaster Demyan - human noble cleric of Loviatar, Goddess of Pain
  Demyan is my dumpster fire. He's a total disaster and I could not love him more. He's a noble, worships a Lawful Evil goddess, a Grave Domain cleric who will definitely let you go unconscious before he bothers to heal you, has the upmost of contempt for most people and as such considers himself above everyone else... in short he's a total prick. But he's also insightful as fuck and protective of children and people who have won his favour. He's also one of the first characters that appeared in my head after I invented an NPC in a game and he just never left, just sat there insisting that I make him into a character. His personality only appeared when I played in a game with way too many other people, about half of which I didn't especially like playing with for various reasons. So it was too much fun to not show my displeasure via my character (without being a dick about it). 
  
  
• Belben Beestinger - halfling arcane trickster rogue
  My very first character, Belben will always be my favourite. He's also the reason I'm obsessed with halflings and have played six different halflings so far. And although it doesn't show in who he is now, his original DNA came about because I was reading a lot of Dashiell Hammett books and wanted an investigator character. He's a member of the enormous Beestinger clan, grew up in a bakery (and that was before I learned how to make bread), has five older sisters (although he never feels like "the baby"). While he could rob you blind, he's not that kind of rogue, he's much more interested in your secrets. He can also walk into a room and totally "Sherlock Holmes" the shit out of it. And I will say that my decision to give him Winged Boots was the best decision I ever made. He's my little bumblebee. 
  
  
• Rain in the Night - tabaxi monk
  If all of my characters are some part of my personality turned all the way up to 15, Rain is my impulsiveness/impatience. He'll be fine up to a point and then he'll get bored and do the dumb thing. This is also aided by the fact that as a cheetah themed tabaxi (bipedal big-cat person) and a monk, he can, when necessary, run up to 270 feet inside six seconds (or 49km/h), which now includes along vertical surfaces and across water. I now tend to dig much deeper for character names, but he was literally named because I was making him at night during a big rainstorm.

The new faces...

• Leif Leatherbuckle - dwarf ranger
  I've talked about Leif's design before... he's a Beast Master ranger with an owl companion... although, just between you and me, I think I actually had more fun when I swapped over to the snow leopard companion. Or maybe it's just that I did more fighting with her in that form. He's also the first time I'd ever jumped into an ongoing story with a higher level class I hadn't really played before. It was also weird to have a different motivation than the rest of the party. The aim was the same, the reasoning was different. And it's still amazing to me that DM Fluffy and I made a whole group of NPCs that Leif was part of out of the fact I couldn't stop making potential replacement characters.
  
  
• Peregrin Swiftfoot - halfling paladin & rogue
  Pery really, really needed to be in the banner. My sweet, deceptive, charming little Oath of Redemption paladin and Swashbuckler rogue. He's one of those characters that still lingers. Not so much with me, but with one of the other players in the Thursday game who still hasn't forgiven me/Pery for walking away at the end of the game. It's been over two years at this point, and it still gets brought up on a regular basis. I've detailed the end of his in-game adventures before, but it makes me all kinds of happy knowing that he's just off in a small village somewhere living his very best life. And that I traumatised one of my fellow players... hahaha.
  
  
• Quillamina Silverthread - gnome druid
  I honestly don't remember what came first with Quill. I feel like I made a "sketch" of a character, a "what kind of character works for this subclass" kind of idea, mostly because the first version of her was just labelled "Star Circle Druid" rather than using her name. And the book with the final version of her subclass wasn't even officially out when I made her. I made her partially because gnome was one of the only two races I'd never played from the Players Handbook, and I really liked the sound of her subclass and was excited to play some of the higher levels.  Sadly, that wasn't to be with Quill either, and she bowed out of the game, letting Leif take her place. But, honestly, if ever where was a character who did what needed to be done, it was her. She didn't remain the soft character I originally envisioned, but then life was particularly hard on her during the campaign.
  
  
• Harland Honeypot - halfling bard
  The first character I ever designed live on the blog. Normally I would have done all that "off-screen", but I started talking about him and suddenly he tumbled out of my head mostly fully formed. I then refined those ideas into Harland. And as much as I love the mouthy little College of Eloquence fucker, Harland is where I realised why bards don't work for me. But we're coming to the end of the campaign that isn't really a campaign with him... and I think I know how it's going to wrap up for him. Given some of his experiences, and the ridiculous amount of gold he's currently carting around with him... his future plans occurred to me a week or so back and it seems only fitting. He just needs to live through the last couple of adventures.

Current mood:

movies: everything everywhere all at once

I'm not sure I've ever done this is a review before. And if I have, it wouldn't have been very often.

But, stop reading this. Right now. And instead, go and watch Everything Everywhere All At Once. Find somewhere it's playing in theatres, look it up on stream services. 

Just go and watch it. Immediately. Consider that the short version of my review.

Okay, so now it should just be those of us who have seen the movie left. 

Hi, how you doing? Good? Excellent. Let's get into it, shall we.

First off. Holy fucking shit. This movie is absolutely amazing.

The delightfully named duo of writer/directors, the Daniels (Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert) have absolutely hit it out of the park with this movie.

I love Michelle Yeoh at the best of times, but the role of Evelyn Wang is quite possibly the best performance (performances?) she's ever given in a movie.

In fact, this movie is filled with outstanding performances... Ke Huy Quan (as Waymond Wang), yes, Data from Goonies and Short Round from the second Indiana Jones movies... I did freak out slightly when I realised who he was, who manages to match Yeoh beat for beat throughout the story, Stephanie Hsu (as their daughter Joy) who absolutely crushes everything she's given and Jamie Lee Curtis (as a very dowdy IRS agent) who is chewing ALL of the scenery in the best possible way... not to mention James Hong (as Evelyn's dad) aka Po's Dad from Kung Fu Panda and... basically 450 other projects... who is just a treasure, and still acting in his 90's.

Honestly, though, even the small roles are excellent. And I want to specifically call out Tallie Medel as Becky, Harry Shum Jr as Chad and Jenny Slate as... Dog Mom. Plus a number of the stunt performers from Shang Chi.

The only... microscopically minor complaint I have is that I wish they'd used some of those additional characters in the same way that they used the main cast. Repeated them in different contexts. I get why they didn't... but for me it would have tied things together a little more. But, honestly, it's barely even a complaint, it's more that it would have been an additional bonus.

The place where this movie shines... no, wait... this movie doesn't shine. This movie fucking GLOWS. The place where it glows the brightest is the script. This is a smart movie. This is a layered movie. This is a simple story masquerading as a complex idea. And it's a complex idea presented as a simple story.

It's one of those movies that you watch for the first time and pretty much need to just sit and go... "well... fuck" for about a week and just let it wash over you. And then watch it again. And every time you watch it, you'll pick out some other tiny detail you hadn't noticed before. Or you'll get a reference you didn't get before. Or just soak in the sheer brilliance of this movie.

There are already tiny facts I didn't pick up the first time through that I've seen mentioned in other places. And yes, of course I immediately smacked my forehead and went "of fucking course!".

What's interesting is that this movie is, at it's core, how you do the core story in Turning Red correctly. That movie did not stick the landing at all. It went in entirely the wrong direction, for me at least. This movie is that exact same story (more or less). But done right. Yes, of course, the two audiences are completely different. It's still basically the same kind of story, set within the same cultural framework.

It's just very hard for me not to compare them in my head (even discounting the fact that James Hong is in both movies).

Putting that to one side, one of the things that I love most about this movie is that it makes small references and you chuckle and think "oh that's silly" or "what the fuck is this now?" and then the Daniels bring that small thing back later in a way that's emotionally significant or ties into the core of the movie and it's themes or is the conclusion and expansion of a throwaway joke you never expected them to turn into a full-on part of the movie.

It's also very weird to say that one of the most emotional and impactful parts of character development in this movie occurs between two rocks at the top of the cliff. But it's true.

Also, the other major one involves googly eyes.

That's the thing about this movie, the attention to detail. I specifically want to shout out production designer, Jason Kisvarday, art director, Amelia Brooke, set decorator, Kelsi Ephraim and costume designer, Shirley Kurata. And, honestly, the entire art department and hair, make-up and costume departments. 

Because everything (everywhere, all at once... sorry, I couldn't resist) about this movie is beautiful and specific and everything about the world feels thought out and placed with purpose and intent. And, like the story, things are layered into the background (or, honestly, the foreground) in ways that you don't expect to be relevant later... but holy fuck, they absolutely are.

Also, Kurata... I feel like after this movie, there should be directors breaking down your door (metaphorically speaking) to get you to be the costume designer on their movies. The costumes in this movie... are... art. And they're also completely mundane, when they need to be mundane. And, in one specific case, they're one of the most beautiful champagne coloured gowns (by Elie Saab) I've ever seen, worn by Yeoh.

But there are a set of costumes on one particular character that are just... not only the absolute most and entirely to much, but at the same time are complete and total perfection and help inform the character in such a beautiful and appropriate way.

This movie has a lot of practical effects. Not least of all because there were only seven people, plus the directors, doing the VFX. And none of them were trained in VFX. But they use the effects they do have wonderfully, and do a lot of in-camera effects or prosthetics and save their CG for times when they absolutely need it to be CG.

Coming back around, the thing that makes this movie exception is that it's a beautiful, simple story about a family, told in a meaningful way... against a backdrop that happens to be completely bananas.

And it made me cry. Significantly.

Also, if you haven't seen this movie and you didn't stop reading when I told you to, it's all your own fault (even though, obviously, I don't do spoilers, or at least not major ones)... but absolutely go and watch it now.

yani's rating: 5 googly eyes out of 5

character saturday: whip it good redux

It seems like I'm in the mood to redo old characters...

So today's DnD Character Colouring Book is a revisit of my favourite trashfire character, Deyman. Whipmaster Demyan if you're nasty. And I assure you, as far as he's concerned, you're all very nasty indeed.

Of course, this all happened because Hero Forge dropped some new whips. And while he doesn't wield one himself (not proficient and all that), he does carry a whip. So... that had to happen.

Plus I was never completely in love with the old version. It was a compromise in order to get the look that I wanted.

This time I just cheated it with Photoshop.

The collar beneath the breastplate (and the head attached to it, to be honest), is taken from a completely different piece of Hero Forge clothing, because, stupidly, the breastplates aren't counted as "top layer" clothing, so they can only go UNDER other things.

The mesh sleeve is from yet a third piece of clothing. Just made transparent and with a mesh texture over the top. And yes, he only has one mesh sleeve... because shield arm.

Also yes, I know he's extra. He's my sweet baby edgelord. This is him being lowkey.

Although I haven't bothered creating them, the other versions of his outfit exist in my head... the rank before this one was all black and the rank above this would have the red parts become white. And also, in my head, he has a very different ceremonial outfit that is all white and very transparent in places. And that he very probably hates with a vengeance.

Since he's not that kind of boy.

Anyway...

Sometimes, following a soup recipe leads to excellent results. Thus was the case with the Tomato, Barley & Chorizo Soup I made this week based on the recipe on the back of the pearl barley packet. And it turned out really well. It's definitely one that I will return to, and maybe play around with, but overall it's a solid recipe.

I did a little trip to Officeworks again this week... because, you know, I can't stay away from that place. Also, I need to buy some more printer ink, or at the very least get my printer out and see what's what with it.

I had planned on going out to trawl the world for more jeans on Wednesday. But it basically rained the whole day, and fuck that.

Thursday night's DnD was good... but, honestly, we were all a little bit punchy and dissolved into giggles on more than one occasion. But then that happens when you're fighting two long, thick, veiny... purple worms. And essentially doing a Colonialism. Not with the worms... obviously.

Friday was Chiro Day. A week late, but better late than never.

I also did a little running around in town, picked up some stuff, was unsurprised to see that the only jeans that existed in the Target in town were the fucking same as the ones I already bought. I did manage to get home before it started hammering down with rain, so bonus points there.

Then Fluffy came down slightly early in order for us to have time to watch a movie before we went to DnD. And you can bet your bottom dollar there will be more on that later.

Friday night's DnD was excellent. They didn't DO a lot, technically speaking. As in, they went to one major attraction, a couple of carnival games and triggered some plot. But once again, I was very proud of them as they tried to work out what was going on.

And I definitely had an "aww bless" moment when it twigged for all of them why the Witchlight carnival, run by two men called Mr Witch and Mr Light was called the Witch-Light carnival. Bless.

It's also comforting that I can rely on Mr's characters to "sneak off on their own" no matter what game we're playing. And I definitely won't ever be using that against him.

I am very excited to see what they do next.

Today wasn't much of anything. We did the supermarket, I'm making some conglomeration of beef soup or beef stew. Something in the beef oeuvre. And after we came back here it started raining really heavily, so we didn't end up doing much of anything. And Ma shuffled off home.

Current mood:

movies: turning red

So... Turning Red is... fine.

The animation is lovely. The big furry red panda is sufficiently floofy, and I did get distracted more than once by close up shots of knitted textures. Because it just looks fucking amazing. As do pretty much all modern Pixar and Disney movies.

And I also need to say that I didn't hate the movie. It didn't infuriate me to the point of apoplexy like, for example, Soul. This won't be a long giant rant. The movie was, overall, fine.

It just isn't for me.

Which is perfectly valid.

I'm also not sure who the intended audience of this movie is. Yes, yes, yes... clearly the intended audience is 11-14 year old girls. 

But to me, this movie feels focused in a way no other Pixar movie has been so narrowly focused. At it's core, I would suggest that this movie is actually for the 13 year old versions of the women who wrote and directed it. Because this movie is the most on-the-nose metaphor for teenage girls and puberty I've ever seen.

I hope it works for the people it's being aimed at. I hope the movie works for people in general. I'm just not one of those people.

It's good to see Pixar not just doing the same old same old... in a world of Disney remakes, sequels nobody wants or asked for, weaponised nostalgia and the like, it's good to see them taking a chance on a different kind of movie, giving different kinds of storytellers the opportunity to flex and tell their stories.

But the downside of that is movies that may not be universal and speak to everyone. I mean, maybe you get lucky and they are that thing. But sometimes you won't. And that's okay too.

My main issue with this movie is that I didn't actually LIKE any of the characters. Except maybe Priya. Because Priya has no fucks to give, and will also very definitely grow up to become a lesbian. But I disliked the main character quite a bit. Which is bad... because she's your main character.

I literally spent the first... twenty minutes of this movie staring at it with a raised eyebrow because the overwhelming emotion being inspired the movie was "WTF is happening and who the fuck are these people". And I realised that I needed to consciously lower my eyebrow before my face seized up.

Storywise it feels like it's pretty well worn territory, and it's a storyline that, personally, infuriates the living fuck out of me. Not because it's a bad storyline, but because it's at the same time both a well worn trope that I'm kind of sick of, but also a shitty real-life scenario that I don't really want to see in my media because it makes me mad.

And that's "immigrant family puts overly harsh expectations on child from that family and cause stress to the child as a result", combined with "if you people just had a real conversation we wouldn't be here". And with a little "repressing young women's sexuality" thrown in as a garnish.

Again, not BAD. Fairly realistic, relatively speaking, it's definitely an experience that people have had, but also not something I'm interested in watching. Because I just want to slap the people involved. Maybe it's also because it's a trope that gets trotted out in a lot of gay media as well... replacing "immigrant" with "straight". So, it's, as the kids say, somewhat triggering. But in a way that just turns me off and distances me from the story.

Also, for me, there's a bunch of ideas here that only get partially explored. I suspect some of that is probably because parts of the story are based on the real life experiences of the women who wrote and directed it, and that's their lived experience. But parts of this story seem... superfluous. Or not well explored. In a way that I'm not used to seeing from a Pixar movie. 

Generally if something is in a Pixar movie, it's there for a clear reason. It has definitive set up and pay off. This movie has that... but things don't get set up and paid off in ways that work for me. Like I said before though, that's potentially the cost of telling different types of stories.

But at the end of the day, I recognise that this movie isn't aimed at me, it's not a story that I have an affinity with and, therefore, it's not FOR me. And that's fine. A movie designed for 13 year old girls doesn't actually need to appeal to a man in his late 40's.

yani's rating: 2 boy bands out of 5

character saturday: faerie folk

Today's DnD Character Colouring Book is... essentially the equivalent of me doodling in the back of my DM notebook. But doodling with Hero Forge. And a smattering of Photoshop.

These aren't characters per say... this is more me exploring the idea of fairy characters and pixies and sprites and potential NPCs, but they won't show up exactly like this. Like I said... doodling in the back of my notebook.

I do like how they both turned out. Especially Seafoam. She does have the most Photoshop fuckery... and I may have redone her like a billion times as I changed my mind about her overall colourscheme. But it was worth it... it's perhaps not the aesthetic of a character I'd actually play, but she sure is purdy.

Mustardseed is much more "whole entire newest Hero Forge outfit" plus wings.

Anyway.

This week was all over the place.

At the start of the week I got a Kickstarter backer reward in the mail. I haven't backed anything since... 2017. But this particular item I backed in 2012. Yep, that's right. This Kickstarter took ten years to be finished and send out rewards. Weirdly enough, it was ten years this week that the Kickstarter was fully funded.

At least they actually followed through... I've had other Kickstarters that funded, took the money and then disappeared into the aether. I'm looking at you D&D Documentary and Smart Phone Linked Watch. And probably some others, those are the ones that I remember tho.

I also went shopping for jeans.

I got a pair of jeans. The experience was not enjoyable. The resulting jeans are problematic in a number of ways.

I will need to go shopping for jeans again.

<flip_the_table.gif>

Don't ask. Just... don't.

Anyway.

Thursday night's DnD session was good. It was also, once again, one long combat session.

We'll see how next week goes.

There was no Friday night DnD... there was also not Friday Chiro Day. For the same reason. Yes, pandemical reasons. Both my chiro, Mr and Mrs are currently in isolation. Good times. Or... you know... something.

So instead Fluffy and I decided to watch movies and hang out anyway. And I made blue bread. Well. I tried to make blue bread. But I didn't put enough food colouring in, so it ended up kinda weirdly turquoise. It was still just... bread. Because food colouring.

It was an experiment. It was okay.

We watched an old version of Death on the Nile, because fuck the new version. And then we watched Turning Red... more on that later.

Today wasn't much of anything.

First up we had to go and do our civic duty and write down a bunch of numbers so that some other bunch of pointless twats can potentially replace the current bunch of pointless twats. We did however get a democracy sausage out of it, so it wasn't a complete waste of time.

Something something supermarket. Something something unpacking.

And we didn't really do a whole lot of anything after that. Lack of enthusiasm basically.

So there's that.

Current mood:

character saturday: lady killer

I think this is the first time that I've started one version of DnD Character Colouring Book, decided I hated the whole thing and started over. So, there's that about that.

Instead, I give you Mirth. Because I fucking love a tiefling "virtue" name. And for a brief moment I wanted to work out all possible things I could do with that jester shirt I've also used in like three or four other designs.

But I decided that Mirth was part of a female group of bounty hunters, who all wear the same costume, just in different colours.

It was also me playing around with the idea of a subclass I wouldn't normally be interested in.

And that's really all I have to say about Lady Mirth.

Moving on.

This week was potato and leek soup... and it was okay. Once again, if I put carrot in a blended, basically white, soup, then it goes a weird colour. Doesn't change how it tastes, but, as they say, we first eat with our eyes.

Which, stopping and thinking about it, and taking it literally, is a terrifying phrase.

Chunks of this week were taken up with doing last minute prep for Friday's DnD game... which included having to print a bunch more things that I either hadn't thought of, wanted to update or had missed out previously.

Then on Wednesday night, my internet shat itself. So much so that I called my ISP and while waiting for them to call me back (because that's what we do these days... we wait for some random person in another country to call us back... urgh) I kind of gave up and was going to watch movies. But, of course as soon as I reheated some soup, the nice lady called me.

And we did the "I already did this... okay, now do this" dance for a while to no avail.

She was as helpful as she could be under the circumstances, and escalated the job as appropriate to the NBN people.

But, of course... because Life has a sick sense of humour, as soon as I got off the phone with her... the internet started working perfectly again.

Don't know if it was something she did at her end, whether it was a temporary problem that fixed itself, I couldn't tell you.

It reoccurred on Thursday around the middle of the day, but I had a phone call from the ISP very shortly afterwards saying "hey, the NBN say they poked the problem at their end and it should be good now"... so maybe that minor outage was them doing that. Don't know.

It seems like it's... fixed. Fingers crossed, wood touched, salt thrown, smudge burned... all that stuff.

My ISP has been... I want to say "overly" solicitous... but honestly, I feel like it's the correct amount of solicitous... so I spoke to them Wednesday night. I got a call, as I said, in the middle of the day Thursday, another call mid afternoon Friday and a text message this morning.

Part of me wanted to be annoyed until I realised, no... that is exactly what you do want when there's a problem, you want them to be checking in on it. I guess my frustration, such as it is, just stems from "overseas call centres" in general.

Moving on.

Thursday night DnD was... relatively calm given the last game.

Was it because we spent the entire session in combat? Maybe. Was it because a certain player wasn't playing themselves but were playing an enemy NPC because of choices in the previous game? Maybe. Was it because we haven't played in about a month? Maybe.

I don't necessarily know why... but it was much more reasonable.

Do I still feel like I need a break? Maybe. I did decide that maybe I'll just see the book out, since we're only two chapters/adventures away from the end... plus we still haven't finished the current adventure. We'll see. It will also depend on what the group intends to do next... and how much they annoy me between now and then.

Which brings us to our main event. The one that consumed by brain the entire fucking week.

Friday night DnD. The true start of The Wild Beyond The Witchlight. And me as DM.

I felt less rusty this week. Did I screw things up? Absolutely. Did it fuck up the game? Not in the least.

And I need to say something, that out of context is going to sound super patronising, but I mean it in the most complimentary version of this... I'm so proud of my players. We played the game last week, they didn't know they were going have their characters effected the way they were. I then gave them additional information about how the rest of the world now treats their character, and they very much took it to heart and made that important to their character.

Because Fluffy's character had been separated from the others since childhood, his character had a different set of experiences, but he also had information that they didn't that he could then impart to them. And vice versa. I gave Mr and Mrs specific information about what happened after he left the town.

And I just sat back and let them interact at the start of the game. They literally went off to one side right by the entrance to the carnival and had a character debrief for at least 10 or 15 minutes. And mostly I could just sit back and watch them do my job of providing each other with information.

Also they reacted to certain things in ways I wasn't expecting... or in a much larger way than I thought they might. Which I then definitely fed back into the adventure.

It's also fascinating to me when an NPC voice comes out of fucking nowhere. I had an idea of what I wanted to do with that character, but it wasn't until I started doing it at the table that it really clicked in.

I think they might be at the carnival for a while... which isn't bad at all. I wasn't completely sure how long they'd be there, but I think it could be at least a couple more sessions, which is great, given they're enjoying themselves.

It's also fun to watch them spin theories and have no clue what's coming.

No clue at all... <morticia_addams_teacup.gif>

Moving on.

Today was... not much of anything.

We did the supermarket. We came back here. We futzed around. Ma went home.

And that's about it.

Current mood:

character saturday: good rogue boy

This week's DnD Character Colouring Book is redo of a redo... I first debuted Mr Rook back in October last year... at the same point I had found out I was going to have to move... good time, good times.

At a later point, Mr Rook got a makeover to turn him into... basically a shirtless ass-kicking monk. Because I like monks, I do... but then I fell in love with a lot of the elements of the design of Rook and moved him up to be on the list of "potential future playable characters", and I knew that I didn't want to play a monk, but really wanted to play a rogue.

And then the jester outfit got added... previously seen on Brother Jinx... and one thing let to another and Mr Rook came out looking like the right kind of trouble. So here he is... in his scary oni/samurai mask and his Soulknife blade.

And I gave him an updated backstory, and honestly, he was fairly high on the list of characters I was intending to play next... of course, right after that I made a completely separate monk character who is also on the list... because of course I did.

But given that I'm running our Friday games for the foreseeable future and our Thursday games seem cursed, plus I really need to take a break as previously mentioned, it will be a while before I end up playing somebody new.

Which of course means that I'll probably create/redesign a billion different characters before then.

C'est la vie.

Anyway...

This week's soup was one of those rare entities that actually got better as the week went on. I'm not entirely sure why... it was just a basic vegetable soup. It was good though.

A lot of this week was spent in prep for the Friday game... getting documents and handouts and printouts ready to go.

Thursday night DnD was cancelled again, because, clearly that game is actively cursed right now, which turned out to be excellent, because I went to Officeworks in the middle of the day and my entire living room/kitchen space was covered from one end to the other with a bazillion bits of paper as I cut, trimmed, sorted, tea stained and baked various bits of paper, then put things in folders and whatnot. Time well spent honestly.

Friday night was my first time DMing in a while. Fuck I'm rusty. I also wouldn't say that I'm stressed out about running my first full adventure that isn't supposed to be wrapped up in about four hours... but, you know, it's equal parts exciting and weird.

I also have so many future plans... none of which I can talk about here because one of my players occasionally reads the blog (yes, you... *waves*), but I have a cannon stuffed with character backstory and I'm not going to be afraid to use it.

*cue evil laughter here*

But the party seems like it's going to be a fun one. A half-elf, an emerald dragonborn and a fairy. Fun times.

I do need to get slightly better at time management though, because we ended up playing until after midnight. Whoops.

Anyway.

Today wasn't much of anything. We did the supermarket thing, we came back here. We watched some stuff on the YubTubs... and Ma went home. So there's that.

Current mood:

character saturday: then vs now

How It Started vs How It's Going

I don't remember exactly at what point in the process of starting to manually colour Hero Forge character is was that I did my first ever Good Halfling Boy, Belben of the Beestinger Clan, I feel like I did a version early on, but circled back around and redid him later in the process.

Weirdly (or not), while there are some of the manual colouring final versions that I really like, and that are better than the versions I did after Hero Forge introduced colouring. Sometimes it's about texture, sometimes it's about me adding in things that the website can't do because of the limitations of an item that needs to be 3D printable.

However, this isn't one of those better ones.

Part of the problem is that his whole outfit, including the bow, hair, spell effect, everything, is all Hero Forge 1.0 stuff. And, honestly, all of that stuff needs a do-over.

So, when they dropped yet another great outfit this week, I ended up playing around and using the top and the "thief pants" that I'm obviously obsessed with, because strappies and pouches and kneepads.

Actually, that's a lie... I started playing around because they also released a freckles decal. Woo! Freckles!

I also gave it some Photoshop tweaks. Mostly the bowstring and the glow on the Mage Hand. The boots are also a Franken-Photoshop edit. Or the addition of the wings at least. As is the bow... because there's still only one actual shortbow. It's an actual bow... I just resized the arms.

So, behold today's DnD Character Colouring Book, Belben 2.0.

Anyway.

I'm going to skip over a lot of this week... because I disappeared into my own head/up my own ass very early in the week and didn't emerge for a couple of days.

But I did make the first CHOW-DAH (sorry, I literally can't NOT say it like that) of the season. Not the best version ever, but tasty.

There wasn't any Thursday DnD for reasons. See also two paragraphs previous.

I also made a decision that I'm going to finish out the current adventure we're most of the way through and I'm... taking a break. Not forever. Maybe for a while though. But, honestly, I need a break. For my own mental health.

Friday DnD was three hours of wrap-up... entirely roleplay, just sitting around the table talking about the futures of our fictional characters. And it was good. Cathartic. Things just came together in the way that they needed to.

So, now it's my turn.

Anyway.

Today was the supermarket as usual, and then after coming back here and unpacking we headed off to Good Guys because I wanted to take a look at a new TV and talk to a nerd about printers.

What is super fucking weird to me is that I look at the TV I have now all the time. I should now what size it is. But no, looking at TVs the correct size in comparison with all the gigantic TVs they have, they all looked too damn small. The TV man was also kind of a douche. I mean, he wasn't really, but there was definitely some miscommunication going on for a hot minute.

The guy in the computer section, however, was lovely. It's always the nerds, it was the same with the woman we went to see when I bought this laptop originally... and the printer... and the netbook. She was great, which is also partly why we went back to see her so many times. This guy, also very personable, very knowledgeable.

He also talked me though my printer confusion in a way that definitely made a lot of sense.

Not that we actually bought anything, you understand, today was very much about Looking At Things. And getting a better idea about how we should be thinking about things. Plus, the TV I want isn't even in stock yet.

We also did a quick yet pointless spin around Kmart, because I wanted to look for something I assumed that they would have that they absolutely did not have. Fun times.

And that's all there is about that really.

Current mood:

character saturday: half-orc hot boy

So, this week in DnD news, we killed a goddess... more on that later.

Today's DnD Character Colouring Book is what happens when you've been thinking about half-orcs and you're watching a video on YouTube when someone says "half-orc equals hot boy"... and about fourteen different gears in your brain all seize up at once.

It's not like that wasn't a thought process I'd had before... but somehow it all clicked in and before I knew it Maxximilian Midnight, half-orc, hot boy stripper, formerly of the Platinum Peacock Gentleman's Club, was born. He went through a couple of variations... the first version was a sorcerer... but then I realised that I could slightly reflavour the Drunken Master Monk subclass and make his heavy silver mirror into a reflavoured mace, which counts as a monk weapon.

And making one of his parents an orc bard (I haven't worked out which parent yet, but I kind of like subverting expectations and making it his mother... but then that's two characters who have "entertainer" mothers) gets around some of the potential ick of half-orc lineages.

It's weird... I've noticed that all of my DnD characters are either very short or over 6 foot... there's not really a ton of middle ground. Clearly that says something about me... not entirely sure what honestly.

I've also been having fun of late playing around with some of the background things... sure, it's not actually a spotlight that is connected to the lighting at all, but it adds to the ambiance.

Moving on...

This week was Minestrone ala Yani... me making up minestrone from memory and not consulting a recipe of any kind. And, not to toot my own horn, but it's pretty fucking good.

Honestly not a lot happened for the first part of the week... Public Holiday Monday and all that.

I know I've said this before about Thursday DnD... but sometimes I fucking hate my friends. I don't know what came first, me being in a mood or the Thursday group getting on my last nerve... but yeah, one fed into the other which... something something... spiral.

I'm not getting into it, in the grand scheme of things, it honestly doesn't fucking matter, and I'll get the hell over it.

Friday was Chiro Day... and also me wandering around town for about an hour day.

Friday night DnD... we killed a goddess.

Well, the three corporeal forms of a goddess on the Material Plane... essentially, we killed the final boss with it's three health bars. Which means we've finished that campaign. Around 40 sessions, something like 10 months... not bad all things considered.

And then it's my turn... after we wrap up next week and also possibly have a week's break playing board games.

I will need to do a little thinking about what happens next for my good dwarf ranger boy as we do an epilogue session next week. I think I know the main dot points... but I need to flesh it out a bit. And no, I'm not going to do it "live" on the blog, so you can relax.

I do need to remember not to write War and Peace this time though.

Moving on...

Nothing overly special to report for today... Supermarket plus some wandering around shops... and a trip to Haighs for post-Easter broken Easter eggs. But when I got home I realised that I'd totally forgotten the main reason we went for a shop wander... typical.

But that's it really.

Current mood:

character saturday: lady ostara

Lady Ostara Dawnglow follows in the footsteps of the Jingle Bros (parts One and Two) from Christmas and Master Bohai from Chinese New Year. The DnD Character Colouring Book personification of the current holiday.

And because I'm ever so slightly obsessed with DnD rogues right now... of course she's a Swashbuckler Rogue, with some Oath of the Ancients Paladin thrown in for good measure. Because Swashbuckler plus most flavours of paladin are an outstanding combination.

There's honestly not really any lore for her in my head. She might hand out gifts to those who deserve them as a paladin, but she also might knife a bitch, because rogue.

Fun times.

The halfling tomato soup remains a success. I honestly think it's slightly better when I have bread in the freezer and can make a cheese toasty to go with each serving, but otherwise, still solid.

You know how I ranted about the DVD cases not getting delivered last Friday... yeah, it took until Wednesday until they finally did. Because I assumed that I had, in fact, asked for them to be redelivered... but, no, I didn't check all the boxes or I did it on my phone and not the laptop or, you know, I didn't fucking hold my mouth at exactly 93.3 degrees from the lunar polar orbit of Mercury or something.

But, once I did all those things, then it got delivered the followed day. Which was Wednesday.

Thursday night DnD didn't happen... because a) that group can't make a declarative decision to save it's life and b) two of the members had to isolate. On the plus side, it's very possible that the decision not to play the previous Thursday is the only reason the whole group didn't have to go into isolation. Silver lining and all that.

Friday night DnD was... both nailbiting and slightly anti-climactic. Nailbiting because the entire party almost fucked a roll to resist an ability that dropped everyone to 0 health. Well, actually, the PARTY all fucked the roll... one of our NPCs didn't.

But anti-climactic because we were fighting, essentially, two spellcasters and a glass cannon. Which is how they justify putting an enemy that can potentially kill the whole party at the end of the adventure. Make it weak to being punched in the face.

I will say that I think that I would have enjoyed playing a Beast Master ranger from the beginning of this campaign. Because, honestly, I'm enjoying how they work in game. And the fact that, basically, your animal companion is your subclass. So, if you're not using them all the time, especially in combat, then you're not really playing your subclass.

I already knew that, but it really clicked during last night's game.

And, yeah... it would be interesting to do it again at some point.

Today was... more complicated than it needed to be.

Ma, in her infinite... Ma-ness... somehow forgot to not just lock her front door, but close it. And left the keys in the door. And only worked this out when she got to my house for some reason.

So instead of going to the supermarket, we went back down the road to Ma's place in order to close and lock her front door and security door, and then come all the way back down the road to the supermarket and continue on as normal.

Whether or not the shopping experience would have been better or worse if we had gone straight to the supermarket, I can't say. Invariably people all lose minds on Easter Saturday. And I've never been able to work out exactly why. Like, the shops have been closed for a single day... and they will be closed, basically for one additional day. Why you gotta lose your mind? Why you gotta get All The Things? Why are you in the supermarket taking up space? Stop it.

Would it have been worse... I mean, it has been worse. And maybe it would have been even worse at 8am, who knows.

So, we did the shopping thing.

Then we did a brief excursion that resulted in... well, nothing. And then Ma went home. The end.

Current mood: